This invention relates to a recording apparatus which can record a signal such as, for example, an audio signal inputted thereto onto a recording medium.
In recent years, disk media onto and from which audio data can be recorded and reproduced such as, for example, a mini disk (MD, trademark) and recording and reproduction apparatus on which such disk media can be used have been popularized widely.
In such a MD recorder/player as just mentioned, a user can obtain an audio library arbitrarily by recording, for example, an audio signal reproduced by an audio apparatus such as a compact disk (CD) player or an audio signal outputted from a radio set onto a MD.
In a digital audio system such as a MD recorder/player as described above, audio data are usually managed in a unit called "program". Here, a program in the present specification signifies a set of data which are managed and recorded in a unit on a disk, and for example, with regard to audio data, it corresponds to one tune (generally called "track") or the like. Therefore, in the following description, a program may suitably be referred to as track.
As audio signals in general music applications, audio signals of the 2-channel stereo system and the monaural system are used frequently.
In digital data recording, when audio data of the stereo system are encoded into recording data to be recorded onto a recording medium, a formatter stream is formed and recorded such that it may be a data stream which includes L-channel data and R-channel data arranged time-divisionally therein.
In recent years, a MD recorder/player has been developed wherein it can execute monaural recording on the premise that it can record L and R stereo audio data having the data structure described above. In monaural recording, for example, an audio signal inputted as a signal of a single channel is successively placed into sound frames of L channel data and R channel data to form a data stream. The data stream obtained in this manner has a data amount equal to 1/2 that upon stereo recording, and therefore, a recordable time equal to twice that by stereo recording can be obtained with the same recording medium. For example, with regard to a MD recorder/player, while a mini disc which allows recording for 74 minutes has been placed on the market, monaural recording makes it possible to perform recording of the mini disk for 148(=74.times.2) minutes.
Among mini discs placed on the market as described above, a mini disk of the type which has a recording capacity for recording of stereo data for 74 minutes has been popularized widely. This corresponds to the fact that the maximum recordable time of, for example, a CD is nominally 74 minutes, and the mini disk of the type described is designed so that all contents recorded on a CD can be recorded (called dubbing) onto it.